Chapter 11
Maximizing Application Usability
What's in this Chapter?
- Improving the usability of your iPad applications
- Understanding foundational human interface principles
- Transitioning from traditional web-based designs
- Embracing the iOS user interface paradigm
- Following best practices on mobile app usability
- Key ideas from Apple's Human Interface Guidelines
The last couple of chapters covered the high-level concepts around designing an iPad application. That discussion started with defining what is the core purpose of the application and who are the users, as well as how and where will the users actually use the app. The process of designing the user experience, from paper prototyping to realistic looking mockups and ultimately through functional user experience prototypes, was also outlined.
In this chapter, we'll build upon those concepts with an emphasis on the overall usability of the application. As I've mentioned before, a lot of the principles of human interface design and user experience are not commonly practiced in many enterprise environments, so don't be surprised if you aren't familiar with these ideas. With a lot of traditional enterprise software development, usability and user interface design was usually a lower priority that was examined near the end of a project. When it comes to mobile software development, though, especially with the iPad, having high usability and a great user experience are absolutely necessary to a successful application, even when ...
